Authentication issues currently being faced by Microsoft Outlook, OneDrive and Skype

Users all over the world have reported the authentication issues on March 21, when they were signing into Skype, OneDrive, and Outlook along with different other Microsoft accounts. The same issue had troubled users a few days ago when they were not able to sign-in to their cloud services.

Also, the Xbox Live site have reported signing in issues and limited access. The users faced troubles while purchasing and downloading items using Xbox Live.

Managed Service Accounts (MSA) is Microsoft’s single sign-on program, with which users can be authenticated and can log into different Microsoft services.

Currently, MSA does not include Azure Active Directory for any authentication. It is claimed that Microsoft is preparing to merge the two authentication services. However, the issue faced by users presently may not be due to this.

A similar issue was reported, two weeks ago, the Skype Heartbeat site posted a comment saying that users may face a problem while signing in.

Microsoft resolves issues, services restarts

After the issue was reported, Microsoft started working on it and has found out a solution so that users can resume their signing in process.

At first, the Office 365 status page for signing into Outlook.com and OneDrive showed issues. About 3.25pm ET, Microsoft said that it was planning a fix to restore services. At around 3.30pm ET, some users said that they could sign-in to their accounts.

The final update has taken place around 4.30pm ET and it was seen that Azure was no longer experiencing any sign-in issues.

For the time being, only the Outlook issues have been fixed and OneDrive users continue to face the problems. The Microsoft website stated that it is working on resolving the OneDrive problems. The next update can be released by 12.30 pm ET on March 22.

“Users may be periodically unable to sign in to OneDrive,” says the status report.

It is yet to be seen how long it takes for Microsoft to regain its normal functionality of OneDrive. By looking at the things, users may need to tolerate this inconvenience for a bit longer.

As the problems have occurred in such a short span, the company has not shared any firm reason behind these issues.